Apple backtracks on price hike plan

Vendor tones down changes to license fees after complaints from Macintosh clone manufacturers

Apple is understood to have bowed under pressure from its Mac clone licensees by putting a proposed price hike on ice.

Last month, Apple was preparing to increase fees for its licensees so that OEMs would pay extra to assemble a system. The manufacturer charged licensees $50 for using the Mac OS, which was expected to jump to $1,000 (PC Dealer, 12 March).

But US sources claimed that last week Apple had moved from its original thinking and was proposing more moderate changes.

One observer said: ?Apple has now realised that the clone manufacturers are doing a good job and that companies would have walked away from it if prices were drastically increased.?

Apple is holding talks with licensees, such as Power Computing, IBM, Motorola and Umax, and is expected to agree changes within the next few weeks. Observers said the licence is expected to increase for some machines and to be lowered for others.

Meanwhile, the ownership of Apple remained firmly up in the air this week as Larry Ellison?s investment group bided its time with its proposed hostile takeover.

Speaking at the Oracle European User Group in Vienna last week, Ellison said: ?Apple should be making Macs into network computers or NC servers that are low cost and easy to use. Apple is going down the wrong route and Oracle has no interest in buying it.

?I have a personal interest in buying Apple. It?s not the right forum for me to explain what Apple is doing wrong, but I would love to see it making NC clients and servers.?

In a separate move, Sun Microsystems is said to be talking to Apple about buying the company?s Newton division. Sun made a bid of $20 million last year which was rejected.

Fuji Photo Film is understood to be looking to form a desktop publishing software partnership with Apple to sell Fuji cameras branded with the Apple logo.